Depending on your e-commerce project you may have a need to have a CRM solution. If you have a suite of products and services where you want the option of following up with the customer, using a CRM system can make this process flow very well.

Something as simple as being able to keep notes on a client in a field somewhere in their records could be well enough for a customer service representative to review the customer and get a feeling for how their experience has been going. In fact at some point a customer order will get messed up and the more information a customer service representative has the more likely they can maintain a good relationship with that customer.

Marketing to your existing customers is an easy way to get more sales with a little investment. It could be as simple as sending an e-mail to the existing customers. Make sure you offer an opt out link in your e-mails that go out to customer.

This is a simple link that allows them to unsubscribe from the list. You can use your existing software usually to manage these kinds of campaigns.

There are a number of CRM system available on the market.:

Salesforce.com
SageCRM.com
Microsoft Dynamics CRM

SugarCRM
Zoho
ACT - really more of contact manager but the right answer for some

You want to make purchasing as easy and smooth as possible for your customer. You’ve gotten them this far into the buying cycle and are about to close the sale. Offering as many payment options as possible is key.

Typical payment options include:

·      Major credit cards

·      Online checks (e-checks)

·Pay Pal

·     Google Checkout (New)

·      And possibly order now, pay later programs

Getting payment gateways setup with a company handle your payments and getting that money in to your account can be a complicated process. Here are some tips to get you started in the right direction.

Tip 1:

Many e-commerce applications come with recurring billing modules. This works for subscription-based orders as well as reoccurring orders. Getting your Merchant and Gateway company to be okay with this can be more work but usually well worth it.

Tip 2:

Accepting credit cards online can be handled in a myriad of ways. There are services where you hand the customer off to another site and they handle all the payment details. PayPal offers a service like this.

Here’s our short list of companies that will handle payment details

http://www.authorize.net/

Order management software comes in many different sizes, shapes and colors. We like Stone Edge. It’s fairly easy to integrate and they provide services for tracking orders. The software handles major inventory, drop shipping, invoice and payment options. There are also modules for using SQL server and even adding a POS system to work with brick and mortar cash register.

You can check out Stone Edge here: http://www.stoneedge.com/

Remember, there are several POS systems with e-commerce solutions that come as a part of the package.

Your Friendly Customer Service Representative

Virtual Host

For frequently asked questions you can use a virtual host (VHost).  Implemented correctly this is a very nice addition to a commerce site. Statistics show an increase in conversion as well.

Costs: $20-$150 a month

Description: Provides the server or web space to run the web site. You have to pick a hosting company that is specific to the application.

Just like a diesel engine needs diesel fuel and a gasoline engine needs gasoline you have to pick the hosting right solution that’s right for your web site needs.

Hosting for your web application is basically renting some space to mark your vehicle on the internet. It’s like a renting a building to house your business. It’s the center of your operations.

Overall your hosting situation should be able to accommodate 4 times the current load. If you’re getting about 10 orders a day that probably translates into about 1000 people a day visiting your site. In business you can never tell what is about to happen. If you grow and your hosting provider cannot handle the traffic to your web site, guess what’s going to happen?

For special categories you can create flash driven commercial previews of what they can come to expect in this category. This engaging presentation of promotions and products services up the value of these set of products. Flash development is not as expensive as it used to be and you can pass text and images to the flash so that these displays are reusable.

Example: click on image and roll over the product.